Along with the proliferation of mobile computing devices is the surge in mobile applications. There has also been a surge in wireless deployments, enlarging and improving areas of Internet connectivity. Typically, during times when a mobile computing device is wirelessly connected to the Internet via some form of communications network, either an application running on the mobile computing device requests web content and the like from an application server, or the application server attempts to push content to the application.
In the case of an application server attempting to push content to an application, a push system is typically employed. Such systems are a feature currently supported by multiple mobile operating system platforms. These push system typically enable an application server to push new content to an application operating on a mobile computing device. One such widely used system is the push notification. Push notification allows the application server to alert the mobile computing device user when new data is available. Often the push notification includes an embedded action. When a mobile device user clicks the notification, the embedded action launches the application and thereafter initiates a download of the new data. In addition, typically the application server is allowed to deliver a limited number of characters to a user's mobile device without user action. For example, the headline of the latest news might be pushed to a news application running on the mobile computing device.
Other push systems have recently emerged that seek to facilitate delivery of content to applications by forcing or initiating the download of content to a mobile computing device, without the device's or user's participation. More particularly, in one of these new push systems, content is downloaded when a mobile computing device is powering up. Others of these new push systems allow the background download of a single file once every 24 hours, after which push notifications are used to deliver limited content. Still another new push system does not actually push content to an application, but it prefetches the content prior to the application launching in order to reduce launch wait time. Once launched, the application requests the content in the normal manner.